Bismarck or Taranto?

@marshmallowofwar

Well that explains why it’s so easy to win then as the Allies for yourself. The British don’t need that high of a bid to beat the Germans, and even with the bid they’re still likely to lose both 110 and 111 with the scrambles.

I also don’t know if I need to mention this but the carrier cruiser and destroyer you previously did not use to take out the Italian fleet will be destroyed unless moved out of the Mediterranean which you did not mention whatsoever in your post, in turn these ships will be immediately destroyed by the Italian battleship, 2 cruisers, destroyer, sub, 2 fighters, and bomber.

To me it seems most of this UK strategy you’ve got going is just forced to happen, in other words you’re basically relying on Italy and Germany to do certain things in order for it to work.

Tobruk or Taranto have been incredibly controversial topics on whether one is better than the other and to me Taranto is because who cares about units on Tobruk? They’ll be replaced with new units on the spot and all those units you had previously sent in to Tobruk are now dead in the desert.

Like I previously stated, as far as Im concerned I dont think aircraft carriers or cruisers could grow 2 legs to walk straight for Berlin, so spamming out ships really isn’t going to get you anywhere as Italy will just continue to destroy these ships over and over again until you run out of airforce to put on carriers. And it doesn’t even matter if Italy loses that fleet at the end of the day, them having gotten you to waste money on ship after ship to get one over on them in the Pacific means they’ve already won. Ground forces, the British and the Americans NEED ground forces, you’re not getting yourself anywhere by investing in a huge navy only for it to sit in dry dock for the rest of the game pal.

Finally, if the UK is to put an industrial complex on Egypt turn 1, then Sealion all the way. I don’t care if Russia will get one over on me, I don’t care if America will try to liberate the British Isles, it’s Sealion all the way, and having poorly spent your turn 1 money on a complex in Egypt, you’re gonna lose London because 2 infantry and a fighter isn’t enough to protect it, it just isn’t, and with such little territorial gains made by the UK and such little forces being built up on Britain than I’ll have units left over from Sealion to either keep there for defense or turn them around to attack Russia.

@marshmallowofwar

I’m not sure if you’re joking here or if you’re actually being legit in what you’re saying.

Who cares about 4 mech or 4 artillery not going to Russia? If you think that’s going to be the difference maker on the Eastern Front, then I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you’re sadly mistaken my friend. Because who cares about 4 mech and/or 4 artillery going to Russia when Im about to have 15+ tanks moving in for Moscow that all roll 3 for attack and defense?

Building a carrier and 2 transports for heaven’s sake wouldn’t even be taking away from your Barbarossa attack. Because quite literally everybody that first played Germany, spent their first 2 builds on nothing but ground units, sent them over to Russia, completely obliterated them and said “That was too easy, I could do that blindfolded and spend half as much money on units.” And they were correct. Because your turn 1 build you can pretty much build whatever you want to impose your will on the UK or the Soviet Union. But hey, that’s just what literally everybody else says.

@marshmallowofwar

I guess we won’t be playing then because I don’t play with bids pal. Bids should only be used for people of different skill level and as far as I’m concerned you nor I played this game yesterday for the first time. (that could be questionable for you but I have no intent to inflict conjecture upon you)

I’m glad you’ve won many games buddy, that shows a sign of understanding and veteran style of playing from you, but that only proves your opponents to be pretty skimpy and weak at A&A 40’.

@squirecam

So I’ve done some test rolling and found some good results out of the Taranto Raid if both were to bring in the max amount of forces.

The UK, having brought in a destroyer, cruiser, carrier, 2 fighters, a tac bomber and strategic bomber against a cruiser, battleship and 3 fighters can honestly typically go 2 way for either side, though I’ve found that the Axis do have a small advantage.

Having done multiple test rolls, I’ve found the UK is likely to only score around 2 to 3 hits on the first round combat, maybe 4 or 5 if they get some lucky dice rolls, but 2-3 is around what happens for the most part.

The Axis tend to score themselves 4 hits (either the cruiser missed and the BB and fighters hit or the cruiser hit and 1 fighter missed) or even 5 hits which is definetly on the more lucky side for the Axis but not unheard of to happen since they’re rolling 1 for 3 and 4 for 4. I’ve found with the average roll around either 2-3 hits from the UK and 5 hits from the Axis would ultimately stop the Taranto Raid in it’s tracks. Like I said this is speculation for what kind of dice rolling an Axis player would want for the Taranto Raid to go their way and it surprisingly isn’t that farfetched of dice rolling. With 5 hits landing on the UK they’d be left with a fighter, tac bomber and strat bomber while their 2-3 hits would leave Italy with the battleship and 2-3 fighters reamining rolling 3 at 4 or 4 at 4. And with that the battle is still pretty much a coin toss with the odds favoring the Axis in a 3 on 3 with the UK rolling 1 at 3 and 2 at 4 and the Axis rolling either 3 at 4 or 4 at 4 so it all really depends for what goes on but the Axis can’t really go wrong in dice rolling when they’re rolling 4 at 4 for dice, where as the UK can.

@squirecam

True that, though I can do that easily with the bomber.

As Italy I like to go for that NO of no boats in the Med, clear out any British ships that attack Taranto, its fine if airforce is left, and more than likely the cruiser that attacks the destroyer and transports near Malta will survive unless you’re lucky so what I do is I send the bomber to that cruiser and the destroyer sub and cruiser at the French ships to clean em up which should do the job, are you risking the bomber? yeah, but granted what else are you really gonna use it for atleast for that time being.

And then I’ll attack Greece on turn 2 since I don’t want to put the transport at any risk to the British airforce.

@flyingbadger

Absolutely badger.

While we may see the fight in the Mediterranean from different perspectives, what we inevitably all agree on is that it’s one of the more significant fronts that can easily sway the game for one side or the other all down to the results of a simple raid on Italy.

For me I stick by my philosophy that every Axis piece on the board should be doing something, or playing some sort of role. Which is why I’m a firm believer that scrambling the fighters into the Taranto Raid as the Axis should be done every single time because fact of the matter is, a lot of people tend to say that it’s better to save those fighters for something new but in the end nobody really knows what they’re saving them for, and that’s what causes Axis players to lose. I mean granted Squire had previously said earlier to save those fighters against the French ships or the remaining British ships in the Med but for me the Taranto Raid is the only time I’ll really be able to take of British Planes if I scramble these fighters and when they’re throwing this many planes at me then that’s my objective. Obviously you won’t be able to have absolutely every unit doing something and playing some sort of genuine authentic role but you can get very close to having every single unit active on the board, which is what wins you games.